Wits and Heart
by The Atomic Cafe
Summary: When a case Mac is working on turns out a suspect who might be related to one of his team, Mac is caught in a game of wits and heart. Stellacentric.


Wits and Heart

By Dimgwrthien

Disclaimer: I do not own CSI: NY or affiliates.

"Look at this," Hawkes said, pointing to the stab wound. "Strong downward stroke. Guy has to be at least six two, six three. Big guy, strong arms to do this kind of thing. And if you look here…" Hawkes pointed a gloved finger along the man's lower face. "White residue in the nose. And what do we know about white residue?"

"Where there's white, there's trafficking." Flack kneeled down beside Hawkes and Aiden, holding a black notebook in his hand. He scribbled down a few notes as Aiden took the pictures of the stab wound and the obvious cocaine along the man's nostrils.

"Take a sample," Aiden said as she clicked again. "May be able to find out how many times it's been cut."

Once she started to replace her camera into her kit, Hawkes pulled out a small paper bag and a wooden stick, which he used to scrape the residue into the bag. He then sealed it and scribbled the case number onto it.

"No ID yet?" he asked as he slipped it into the case.

Flack touched the man's pockets. "Not yet." He gave Hawkes an incredulous look. "You really think a dealer would be going around with an ID on him?"

"Not a dealer." Aiden pointed back at the man's nose. "What kind of dealer gets high before selling? He'd be sniffing the merchandise before he had a chance to offer it." She mimed slapping something into her hand. "It's about money, Flack."

Flack didn't get the chance to answer as a shadow fell on them. He turned to see Mac standing behind them, carrying his case and looking over the body. "What do we have?"

"_User_," Aiden answered, stressing the word and giving Flack a pointed look. "Signs of drugs in the nasal passage. Killed by -"

"What about the throat?" Mac asked.

Aiden glanced at him curiously, then tilted the man's head enough to open the mouth. She took out a flashlight and lit it down his throat. At the back of his throat was the same white residue, but it also coated his tongue and teeth.

Mac nodded for Aiden to turn off her flashlight, then looked over the body once more. The man was probably in his mid-thirties, high cheekbones, dark skin, and even darker hair that looked ruffled and disheveled. He wore a simple coat with dark buttons and striped pants. Mac tried to base something about the man by his appearance - possible a higher middle class or just dressing like it.

"Anything else?"

Hawkes pointed at the stab wound again. "Downward stroke. If this guy was standing, the killer must have been pretty big. I'd put the vic at…" Hawkes looked at him from his toes to his forehead. "I'd say about five ten, five eleven." He sat down and moved before lying on the cement even with the body. Hawkes was close to an inch shorter than the lifeless man. "See?"

"It's in the shoulder, though." Mac kneeled beside them. "Shoulder wounds don't usually kill."

Hawkes sat up, an awkward contrast between him and the man. "That's where the morgue comes in."

(Wits and Heart)

Aiden held a bone in one hand, examining the break in it where the knife had been. She listened intently to the medical examiner as she explained it. Jenn, her gloves bloody from opening the body, pointed at the rib cage and heart.

"What kind of broken shoulder kills a person?" Aiden asked, turning the bone over.

"That wasn't the cause of death." Jenn opened the man's mouth. "You had to notice this before. I noticed you had some in your trace."

Aiden nodded. "He died from an overdose?"

"Not exactly." Jenn pulled off her gloves and put on new ones, something that was always done when blood was present. "The throat closes to foreign objects, right? This guy suffocated on coke."

Aiden blinked. "Suffocated? There's a knife in this guy and that's all?"

Jen shrugged. "Sometimes the murders aren't as grand as you'd expect. But one thing has to be true - someone _tried_ to kill Greg Price here." Aiden made a mental note of the man's name, knowing that it meant the fingerprints were back. The knife hadn't contained any prints or substances that could help them. Their only clue was the cocaine itself - it was barely cut, which meant it had to be from a high-rolling dealer.

"Thanks." Aiden nodded at Jenn, who put the blanket over the body and moved it close to the wall of 'drawers' where the bodies were kept cold. Aiden left into the hallway, about to call Mac on her cell phone when she saw him across the hall, talking to Danny.

"Go ahead and tell them I'll move it to the top," Mac told him, signing a paper and handing it back to Danny. He glanced up and looked relieved to see Aiden. "You hear about the cause of death?"

"Suffocation from the drugs." Aiden gave them a curious look, but didn't ask anything.

"DNA." Danny held up the paper and smiled. "It's taking a while."

She nodded, and Danny left down the hall. Aiden turned back to Mac. "Greg Price."

"The vic?"

"Yeah. They fingerprinted him. Can we look around for where this guy lives?"

(Wits and Heart)

"Stella?" Danny looked up from his microscope, then leaned back in his chair. Stella glanced up from hers, rubbing her eyes. "Wanna take a break?"

"Sure." She got off of her chair, yawning. "Jesus, this is taking a long time."

"I don't want to look at trace anymore." Danny felt a yawn coming on and tried to hide it. "I want coffee."

Stella nodded. Danny held open the door for her out of the lab, and both forced themselves to walk down the hallway without sleeping on their feet. They entered the break room, glad to see that it was empty. Danny pulled a few dollars from his pocket and entered them into the machine, waiting as it filled one cup of coffee after another. He took them both, bypassing the sugar and cream, and handed one to Stella.

"Thanks," she mumbled, taking a long sip and wincing from the heat. It felt good to have something charge her brain, if only for a few minutes.

"You talk to Mac lately?" Danny asked.

Stella shook her head, perking up slightly.

"He has a weird case." Danny smirked. "Suffocation, stabbing, some drug trafficking… Not sure of what else."

"Hmm…." Stella considered how strange it was for a moment. Mac usually told her about his cases after work each day. "Do you know how it's going?"

Danny shrugged. "Don't know. Just sounds like a weird case."

"Ah."

(Wits and Heart)

"Finger prints all over these." Aiden picked up a bag between two gloved fingers and showed it to Mac. "And white residue. Think we hit the jackpot?"

Mac nodded and handed her an evidence bag. Aiden carefully inserted one of the plastic bags into it as Mac turned on his flashlight and walked through the rest of the small apartment.

Greg Price was a strangely clean man. The room was sparsely decorated with only a twin-sized bed, a desk, and a chair. The closet contained only a few shirts and pants on hangers, all of them similar to what he had been wearing when he died.

"Done." Aiden inserted the bag into her case and grinned at Mac. "Can I run these back to the lab?"

"Sure." Mac nodded her off, but stayed in the apartment. He continued to look over the corners of the room, trying to see if there was anything that connected him to this dealer besides a near-empty bag.

(Wits and Heart)

Mac pulled off his coat and put it against the back of his chair, though he didn't sit down. Instead, he walked around the perimeter of his office, looking outside of the glass walls at the people and then back to his desk where a box of evidence sat. Aiden would be there soon with the fingerprints, but for now…

Carefully, making sure not to disrupt any of the bags, Mac pulled out the bag with the cocaine from the crime scene. It still had a little powder on it from where the fingerprints were dusted off, but he ignored it as he looked it over. White powder stuck in all four corners, including under the seal. Either someone had filled the bag up rather full or it had been flipped and moved enough to distribute it.

"Hey." Aiden stood at his desk, leaning on one hip and looking rather nervous. "Got the results back." She held out the papers, which Mac took and read over quickly. He paused as he read the name.

"He's from Italy," Aiden told him, then bit the inside of her cheek. "Known to come over to New York. Left his wife in Greece, and she died. Had a child."

"Arsenio Bonasera," Mac read out loud.

(Wits and Heart)

Mac looked through old police reports that seemed to follow Arsenio wherever he went. Many had to be brought in from Italy and Greece, as well as from other large cities in America. Aiden sat across from him, still keeping more silent than usual.

He couldn't help but wonder how to tell Stella. When he had first hired her into the department out of Narcotics, he had raised an eyebrow at her orphan status. "If there's a problem with that, you don't need to hire me," she answered once she noticed his eyes stop along the page. Her hands were on her hips and her mouth was set in a line. "I got out of that hellhole, and I don't want to be walking into another one."

Months later, as they started to become friends, Stella had brought it up just once more, during a case. She held her camera over the body of a young girl and poured out her heart to Mac as she worked. "Poor girl. Parents just left her out here to be murdered." She looked up at Mac, her green eyes unnaturally bright. "I always wondered what my parents were like, why they left me." She clicked away on the camera. "I feel horrible for saying it, but… I'd almost like it if they had died. Don't get me wrong," she added quickly, even though Mac hadn't even looked at her. "I don't _want_ them dead, but… If they left me here, I'd hope it was for a good reason."

Now, Mac considered how to word it to her. "They left you because your mother died and your father was a drug trafficker." It didn't sound right at all, and no amount of rewording would fix it.

"What're you going to tell her?" Aiden asked quietly.

Mac glanced up sharply. "She doesn't need to know about this."

"It's her father, Mac." Aiden shook her head sadly. "You can't just let her going on without knowing this."

He knew it was true. "We just need to keep her off this case until we're done." He continued to flip through the files, trying to look as if it wasn't eating at him. Looking at the dates on the folders, he paused. "Look at this." He started to turn the folders to face Aiden, but an email alert appeared on his computer from the Chicago Police Department. "One second." Mac clicked on it, hoping that they would have the same news he had for Aiden. They did.

"We're going to Chicago," he told her.

"That's nice," she answered, giving him a small smile. "Duck in water, I think they say. Why?"

"I almost said that there's a pattern. He'll come to New York from Italy once a year or every other year, then goes straight to Chicago, then around the rest of the cities. However…" Mac pointed to the computer screen. "They arrested him last night."

(Wits and Heart)

Mac scribbled down a note to himself and put it under the mouse pad on his desk. Taking one last look at his office, he picked up his bag and jacket and started out the door.

"Mac?" He turned when he heard the voice, knowing it was time.

Stella stood beside his door, obviously waiting for him. Her eyes looked reddish as though she had controlled herself enough to not cry, but needed to. "Why didn't you put me on the case?"

He closed his eyes, refusing to turn to her. "How'd you find out about it?"

"From Danny, just an hour ago." He saw her put a hand against her face and stare at the ground from the corner of his eye. "Why didn't you put me on this?"

Mac finally turned to face her. "I can't put you on a case dealing with your family, Stella. It wouldn't hold up as evidence."

Lies. He knew that the only reason was that he didn't want to see her break down like it. Mac made a note to yell at Danny the first chance he got, just for making Stella react like this.

She sighed and tore her hand from her face angrily. "Mac, he's not a part of my family as far as I'm concerned."

"I know that, but the court -"

"Fuck the court!" she hissed. "Even if you couldn't put me on the case, couldn't you at least tell me what was going on? Couldn't you at least tell me that you knew something about my father?"

"Stella -"

"I'm not angry at you," she sighed, but she still wouldn't meet his eyes. "I'm just… I've wanted to know what happened to them for thirty years, and now that I get the chance…" She finally looked up at him and ran a hand through her hair. "Could you have said something?"

Mac didn't answer her question. He felt ashamed for it, even if he knew he had a good reason. "I need to hurry. The plane's going to leave."

She grabbed his arm before he could go. "That's it? This is my _family_ we're dealing with, and that's all you're going to tell me?"

He closed his eyes again, considering the situation. Stella's voice was ragged with emotion.

Her words from years ago echoed in his brain… "_If they left me, I hope it was for a good reason_." And now she was handed the truth, one that she hadn't expected.

"If you hurry and pack, we can get there in time."

Stella nodded curtly. She didn't thank him or say a word as she left.

(Wits and Heart)

Stella watched Mac beside her on the plane. Aiden sat by another woman in front of them and read a book for most of the ride. Mac had a file open in his lap, his head resting against one hand as he read.

I hate you, Stella wanted to say to Mac right then. She couldn't keep concentrated enough to read or do anything. Her hands shook slightly, and her eyes darted around the plane, picking up absolutely nothing. _My father is in prison, and I'm going to arrest him for the state of New York_, her mind dully told her.

, Stella wanted to say to Mac right then. She couldn't keep concentrated enough to read or do anything. Her hands shook slightly, and her eyes darted around the plane, picking up absolutely nothing. , her mind dully told her. 

Nothing seemed right anymore.

When Stella was nine or ten years old, girl wearing a shapeless dress and shined shoes in an orphanage filled with abandoned Greek children, she had daydreamed about her parents. She knew that there had to be a reason for them leaving her. At first, her mind told her that they were just gone for a while, that they would find her.

Soon, she thought that they were gone for a long time, but nicer people would get her. Then she thought they were dead. Then she thought she was the accident of the family, a shame, something that they needed to get rid of. Then she realized that no one would take her.

Now that the mystery was solved, Stella wasn't sure what was right. She didn't have a mother, and what little of her father she did have was now a criminal. She could hear the voices of everyone at the police department and the lab already - '_Isn't it hypocritical to work for us?_' '_How'd she pass the background check?_' '_At least it can't be a case of like father, like daughter!_'

She wrapped her arms around herself and looked back at Mac, repeating the words to herself again in a sort of prayer. _I hate you, I hate you, I hate you._

Mac suddenly fixed the papers and put them back in the folder. He turned to Stella, meeting her eyes at last. "You doing alright?"

No. Stella nodded. "Yeah."

He still didn't look away, and Stella felt naked. "You don't need to do this."

Yes I do. "I know." Stella took a deep breath and stared right back at Mac, hoping that her eyes could have the same effect on him, make him feel like he was being scoured with the truth.

Mac nodded and finally looked out the window. "I haven't been back here in a long time."

"Mm." Stella didn't have the voice for her words.

He seemed to understand her silence and fell silent himself.

(Wits and Heart)

Stella stood outside the interrogation room of the Chicago Police Department. Mac spoke with an officer down the hall about the case in a low voice. It was obvious that he knew this man well by the way they had treated each other. Most people seemed to look over Mac, see the polished shoes, the detective's pin, the way he walked, and held him in a reverence. This man grinned at Mac, clapped him on the back, and spoke to him like a friend.

She waited as they finished speaking, then watched them. The Chicago officer turned and called down another hall to another cop, who shouted back an answer, then appeared with a man in handcuffs. Stella took in every detail of the man, wanting to see more to him than 'criminal'. He had dark curls, shades darker than Stella's. Strong jaw. Long nose. Thin lips. Tall, strong arms, the type that belonged on a father who cradled and played with their child.

The cop led him into the interrogation room, holding the door open for Mac, Aiden, and the second officer. Stella took a breath and followed them in.

As Mac and the officer spoke to Arsenio, Stella could only watch him. Watch his eyes, a dark brown, dart between the officers, then linger on Stella. He looked enough like her that she couldn't doubt their relation, but for one detail. He kept slouched against the chair, a child being yelled at, a criminal under the heavy hand of the law. Arsenio demanded pity with his expression, begging the officers to free him.

Stella watched with strong eyes, unblinking, unwavering. She pressed her mouth in a line.

This is where I came from.

She stood up and left the room, ignoring Mac's look and how he almost stood up to follow her, but let her leave.

(Wits and Heart)

In the hallway, Stella cried. She kept a hand over her face, looking away whenever an officer passed her in the hall. None of them stopped to speak to her, to ask how she was. What kind of bastard would do this to her?

She felt alone.

Your mother's dead and your father's a dealer, her mind repeated to her over and over again. Every time she heard the words in her skull, she felt faint, dizzy, blank. It was as though the more she heard it, the falser it seemed, the more she wanted it to just be a story or a bad dream. _They could have left me alone. Leave me thinking I was just an orphan with dead parents and nowhere to go._ _I'm old enough to get over it._

, her mind repeated to her over and over again. Every time she heard the words in her skull, she felt faint, dizzy, blank. It was as though the more she heard it, the falser it seemed, the more she wanted it to just be a story or a bad dream. 

She felt a hand against her back and shuddered under the touch. Mac stood beside her, keeping his hold on her. Stella couldn't take it. She pushed him off her and walked away, hoping she could find somewhere that Mac couldn't be there, trying to comfort her but only reminding her of the truth. _Your mother's dead and your father's a dealer._

Stella finally found the bathroom. She opened the door, walking in and listening to see who was there. No one. She moved to one of the stalls, bolting the door, and sat on the ground beside the toilet. She didn't cry anymore.

The door opened and Stella could see dark boots from under the stall. "Stella?" It was Aiden.

"I'm fine," Stella told her, covering her eyes.

"I know." Aiden's voice was soft and smooth, a nice anchor to the world. Stella saw Aiden's boots near the stall and then saw her kneel down on the floor. Aiden rested her shoulder against the door. "You wanna head out? I'll take you to lunch before we leave."

Stella sniffed, rubbing at her eyes. She would have to come out soon, and she wanted a victory of dry eyes and emotionless looks. "Alright," she muttered, standing up. She heard Aiden stand up with her, waiting for the door to open.

Aiden gave Stella a small smile when she came out, then spread out her arms. Stella walked forward, letting Aiden hug her, her hand rubbing Stella's back.

"It's alright," Aiden whispered. "If you need it… Mac asked the officer to wait until you have a chance to see him, if you need to."

Stella held onto Aiden, looking at the ends of Aiden's hair as she thought it over. "Could I?" she asked quietly.

(Wits and Heart)

And now, Stella sat in front of her father for the first time in her life. They met each other's eyes, carefully examining each other in a false and disheartening family reunion.

"Stella," Arsenio said in his thick accent, and seemed to treasure her name for a moment.

"Arsenio," she answered. He seemed to wince behind the calm skin.

When he reached out to touch her hand, Stella withdrew. He retreated. "I'm proud of you," he whispered. "A New York cop. That's - that's amazing."

She didn't answer.

"I never thought I'd see you grown up." He looked her over again, almost looking like a father. Stella hated the expression on his face. _You're a filthy criminal, not my father._

"That's because you never planned to," she answered coldly, then pushed her chair out from under the table and walked to the door. Before she opened it, she sighed and turned back to him.

"Raising a child isn't hard," she told him, looking over his shoulder so that she couldn't see his face. "Even if you don't want her, even if you can't handle her, you can still support her by - by not doing this," she spat. "You don't need her to learn everything about you from a criminal record and some pieces of evidence."

And she left without seeing that expression on his face, never knowing that he cried right there.

(Wits and Heart)

Stella sipped at her water as she sat across from Aiden in a diner. The seats were metallic, a vague cliché of the fifties diners.

"Glad to be heading back," Aiden said, trying to make a stab at conversation.

Stella nodded. "One day gone, and we're probably going to have cases stacked up," she answered, only speaking to keep Aiden happy.

She heard footsteps behind her, but didn't bother to turn. Mac sat down in a chair beside Aiden, not even trying to meet Stella's eyes.

"Mac?"

He glanced at Stella, his posture stiff, his hands folded neatly.

She hesitated. "I'm glad you brought me," she whispered. "Thanks."

Mac nodded, glancing away, but Stella saw a wane smile on his lips.


End file.
